CNN Exclusive: Inside Iran

Summary

Amanpour – “CNN Exclusive: Inside Iran”

Date: March 5, 2026
Host: Christiane Amanpour
Podcast: Amanpour (CNN Podcasts)

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Episode Overview

This high-stakes episode of Amanpour offers a rare inside look into Iran amid a rapidly escalating regional war. Key topics include the expansion of conflict beyond the Middle East, unprecedented U.S. and Israeli military actions, the impact on Iranian society, shifting geopolitics, and the prospect of regime change or revolution in Iran. The program features frontline reporting, exclusive interviews with military leaders, poignant voices from Iranians, historical context from renowned experts, and real-time analysis of U.S. governance and war powers as Congress debates its role in the unfolding crisis.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. War Escalation and Global Involvement

[00:04–02:43]

• Christiane Amanpour recounts the spread of the war beyond the Middle East:
  • U.S. torpedoes an Iranian warship in international waters, killing 87 sailors.
  • Drones strike an airport in Azerbaijan.
  • Attacks on European and NATO interests.
  • Israel intensifies strikes on Iran and Hezbollah.
  • The U.S. expands its military engagement.
• Iranian officials characterize the U.S. attack as an atrocity; more than 1,200 people now reportedly killed in Iran.
• Fred Pleitgen and his CNN team become the first U.S. network granted permission to enter Iran since the war began, highlighting the historic nature and limitations of on-the-ground reporting.

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2. Frontline Reporting: Entering Iran

[02:43–04:06]

• Fred Pleitgen describes crossing into Iran with a caution about unknown dangers:
  • Roads to Tehran filled with uncertainty, checkpoints, and active combat.
  • Ongoing massive U.S. and Israeli aerial attacks; Iran retaliates primarily with drones and ballistic missiles.
  • Iranian sources claim their missile arsenal remains vast and largely unused.

“In total, the Iranians are saying that they can continue this campaign for a very long time... and they haven’t even used some of their most modern missiles.” — Fred Pleitgen [03:45]

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3. Interview: Admiral Mike Mullen on War Objectives, Escalation, and Endgame

[04:06–18:10]

U.S. Strategic Objectives

• Amanpour presses Admiral Mullen on the administration's rationale and objectives for attacking Iran.
• Mullen emphasizes shifting narratives:
  • Initial goals: destroy Iran’s missile capability, prevent nuclear weapons development.
  • “Regime change” is discussed but not official policy.
  • Hopes for clear, limited objectives and future containment.

“I would hope that we could move to a point where the objectives are somewhat limited and then essentially contain Iran in the future.” — Admiral Mike Mullen [04:56]

The War’s Uncontainability

• Amanpour flags past predictions that a wider war would be hard to contain; Mullen is not surprised by the regional escalation.
• Mullen underlines the need for an “endgame” — what does victory or resolution look like?

“We need to have a discussion on how this ends... I’m just not sure we have that yet.” — Mullen [07:04]

U.S. Attempt at Regime Influence

• Discussion of Trump's stated intent to influence Iran’s leadership succession, dismissing Khamenei’s son as unacceptable.
• Mullen sees this as highly challenging, highlighting regime’s deep entrenchment and IRGC’s grip on Iran’s economy.

“We’re displacing everything that an awful lot of people in the regime stand for. And I think this war right now is a fight for Iran’s survival, for the regime’s survival.” — Mullen [09:00]

Missile War and U.S. Supply Concerns

• Senator Mark Kelly expresses doubt that the U.S. has the “math advantage” in terms of missile interceptors vs. Iranian capabilities [10:14].
• Mullen acknowledges depleted Western missile inventories due to ongoing conflicts and high rate of usage.

“You can’t produce them very quickly... that depletion is pretty rapid, how long it can last. And I think this is part of Iran’s strategy, which is, can they outlast us?” — Mullen [11:33]

U.S. Arming of Kurds?

• Amanpour probes rumors of U.S. arming Kurdish separatists in Iran.
• Mullen warns of extreme complexity, given Kurdish divisions and regional sensitivities, particularly with Turkey.

“Involving the Kurds is much more complicated than what might be seen as a good idea... We need to move and understand that cautiously.” — Mullen [12:35]

Sinking of Iranian Warship

• Mullen is unapologetic regarding the U.S. use of a torpedo in international waters, points to the Iranian navy’s limited threat.

“When a war starts like this, Iran’s the enemy, so their military is fair game whether it’s near or far.” — Mullen [14:43]

Differing U.S.-Israel Objectives

• The joint U.S.–Israel operation faces diverging aims:
  • U.S.: restore deterrence, contain missile/nuclear threat.
  • Israel: views threat as existential, seeks complete elimination.
• Mullen notes Gulf states want swift stabilization; China, reliant on regional energy, is an interested observer.

“There is a survival aspect of this for Israel and they see an opportunity now to eliminate this threat for the foreseeable future. I think we have to reconcile what we would like to see with that specific objective.” — Mullen [16:32]

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4. Voices Inside Iran: Relief, Trauma, and Mixed Emotions

[20:23–25:28]

• Jomana Karadshe relays text/audio testimonials from Iranian women and former regime prisoners:
  • Strikes on morality police centers in Tehran evoke both relief and pain—reminders of trauma, but hope in the collapse of instruments of repression.
  • Some express gratitude to Israel for destroying regime infrastructure.
  • Others mourn the many civilian casualties, such as the death of the 29-year-old artist Soroush Haza’i.

“I’m crying because I’m so happy... and I’m crying because I remember the way I was insulted and pushed around in that building.” — Unnamed Iranian woman [21:21]

“This regime must be destroyed so a new Iran can rise.” — Poria Alipour, protester survivor [23:55]

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5. Will There Be a Revolution? Historical and Political Analysis

[25:28–38:28]

Abbas Milani (Iranian-American historian)

• Attributes current suffering to decades-long regime intransigence and violence.
• Emphasizes that the Iranian people have sought change for decades, noting widespread demonstrations and resistance.

“Seeing these innocent lives, the destruction of property, breaks any Iranian’s heart... But I cannot forget that... this brutal regime killed, at least according to its own numbers, the 100 innocent Iranians.” — Milani [26:43]

Scott Anderson (journalist/historian)

• Contrasts current regime’s brutality with the Shah’s last days; thousands killed by current leadership, far surpassing casualties during the revolution.
• Skeptical of exile figure Reza Pahlavi’s potential return as figurehead, seeing popular support as largely symbolic “nose-thumbing” at the regime.

“The people who were slaughtered in January... were killed with machine guns and shotguns. No matter how much air attack... the weapons of murder the regime uses are not going to be affected.” — Anderson [33:20]

Milani on Democratic Potential

• Stresses the Iranian people's desire for secular democracy and agency over their own future.
• Cautions against Western imposition or control of leadership transition.

“What is important is what the people of Iran seem to clearly want, and that’s a secular democratic society. An end to this regime... the future of Iran has to be determined by the people of Iran. It cannot be determined in Israel. It cannot be determined in Washington.” — Milani [36:28]

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6. U.S. War Powers and Constitutional Debate

[39:49–47:32]

• Noah Feldman (Harvard Law):
  • Declares the current U.S.–Iran exchange “absolutely” qualifies as war under international and constitutional law [40:42].
  • Outlines U.S. legal history: post-WWII buildup enabled presidents to act unilaterally; War Powers Resolution intended to check this, but presidents routinely override or ignore it.
  • Congressional restraint is possible via funding limitations, but unlikely in current political circumstances.

“When you bomb a country and take out its leader, that’s an act of war... Under our Constitution, yes, we’re absolutely at war right now.” — Feldman [40:42]

• Debates over what constitutes an "immediate threat" as justification for military action, with Feldman skeptical of the administration's arguments for preemptive strikes.

“It’s a kind of slippery slope that based under almost any circumstances, we could generate a justification for going to war.” — Feldman [46:05]

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7. Breaking Political News: DHS Secretary Ousted

[47:32–55:03]

• Kristen Holmes (CNN White House):
  • Live reporting: President Trump fires DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, replacing her with Senator Markwayne Mullen, in reaction to a series of management controversies and fallout from a Minneapolis enforcement operation.
  • Capitol Hill reactions: widespread Republican dissatisfaction, with incoming leadership seen as likely to win Senate confirmation.

“I want to be a team player and I want to secure the border and I want to enforce our immigration laws. But I’m tired of trying to explain behavior that is inexplicable to me.” — Unnamed Senate Republican [53:36]

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Memorable Quotes

• Admiral Mike Mullen: "This war right now is a fight for Iran's survival, for the regime’s survival." [09:00]
• Abbas Milani: “The future of Iran has to be determined by the people of Iran. It cannot be determined in Israel. It cannot be determined in Washington.” [36:28]
• Iranian regime survivor: “I’m crying because I’m so happy to know it doesn’t exist. And I’m crying because I remember the way I was insulted and pushed around in that building.” [21:21]

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Notable Timestamps

• 00:04–02:43 — Amanpour’s summary of war escalation, attacks, and frontline entry into Iran
• 04:06–18:10 — Full Admiral Mike Mullen interview: objectives, escalations, and geopolitical context
• 20:23–25:28 — On-the-ground Iranian voices: trauma, grief, relief, and conflicted feelings
• 25:28–38:28 — Roundtable with Abbas Milani and Scott Anderson: revolution prospects, historical insight
• 39:49–47:32 — Noah Feldman explains legality, precedent, and Congress’s role in war declaration
• 47:32–55:03 — Breaking news: DHS Secretary Noem fired, with live expert commentary

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Tone & Style

• Urgent, sober, and empathetic—reflecting the gravity of war and personal loss.
• Commitment to balanced analysis, expert-driven debate, and amplifying the voices of those affected inside Iran.
• Mix of hard news, insider military and legal analysis, and deeply human testimony.

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Summary

This episode of Amanpour delivers a comprehensive, emotionally resonant, and unflinching look at a critical moment for Iran and the wider world. Listeners hear from military and historical heavyweights, U.S. lawmakers, legal scholars, and—most powerfully—the ordinary Iranians caught in the crossfire. The program probes strategic questions, constitutional dilemmas, and the raw human cost of war, providing not only context and expertise but also a forum for the lived experiences of those at the center of history as it unfolds.

Transcript

[Christiane Amanpour]

FOREIGN

hello, everyone, and welcome to Amanpour. Here's what's coming up. War spreads beyond the Middle east as the US Torpedoes an Iranian warship in international waters and drones damage an airport in Azerbaijan. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen joins me. Then a look inside this extraordinary and dangerous time in Iran. We hear from people inside the country about what they are seeing and feeling. Plus, I ask historians Abbas Milani and Scott Anderson whether Iran is on the verge of another revolution. Also ahead, Democratic lawmakers try again to limit Trump's ability to wage war. Hurry Srinivasan. Speak to Harvard law Professor Noah Feldman about the latest efforts on Capitol Hill. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. The war on Iran is spilling out beyond the Middle east, pulling in ever more countries like Azerbaijan, where a drone struck an airport, injuring two people, damaging the terminal. Iran's military denies launching it, but it does come just today after NATO shot down a missile headed for Turkish airspace. The UK France, Spain and Italy have begun working to shore up European defenses in Cyprus after a British air base on the island was attacked earlier in the week. This video released by the IDF shows Israeli jets en route to Iran, where it continues to pound tars, hitting more Iranian missile sites and Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon. The US Too, is expanding its war zone, torpedoing an Iranian warship in international waters off the coast of Sri Lanka, killing at least 87 Iranian sailors on board. The U.S. defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calls it a quiet death, while Iran's foreign minister calls it an atrocity. And Iranian state media say that more than 1200 people have now been killed in Iran. Correspondent Fred Plaitkin and his team have now crossed the border into Iran. They are the first. It is the first time a US Network has been allowed into the country since the start of the war. And of course, as all reporters, they are operating there only with the permission of the Iranian government. And here's their first report.

[Fred Plaitkin]

We just crossed the border and are now inside of Iran. The Iranian government has granted us a visa to come here and to report from the Islamic Republic of Iran. We're now trying to make our way to the capital, Tehran, as fast as possible. But of course, the distances in this huge country are immense and we know it's going to take many, many hours for us to get there. We also don't know what the situation on the road to Tehran is going to look like, how many checkpoints there's going to be. And of course, we know at the same time, there are mass combat operations also going on. The United States and Israel are continuing their huge aerial campaign against targets inside of Iran. At the same time, the Iranians continue to retaliate, not just with their ballistic missiles, but with their drones mostly hitting Israel, but then also American military installations, especially in the Gulf region, but in general in the Middle East. In total, the Iranians are saying that they can continue this campaign for a very long time. They say that their missile arsenal is still immense and they haven't even used some of their most modern missiles. But we also, of course, know that the place that we aim to go to, Tehran, has been under almost sustained attacks with massive airstrikes going on there and also huge damage being caused, and, of course, many people also having been harmed.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So as Fred was reporting, the scope of this war is only growing. Using a torpedo to sink an Iranian combat vessel marks the first time a U.S. navy submarine has done that since World War II. Admiral Mike Mullen served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and previously as the U.S. navy's Chief of Naval Operations. And he's joining me now from Maryland for his first interview since this war began. So welcome, and thank you for joining us.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Good to be with you.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Christiane, are you satisfied that there is a clear and you understand the rationale for an attack, the administration's rationale?

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Well, I think actually here in the US there's been a tremendous amount of discussion about what the objectives were, and it's moved from to destroy their missile capability to make sure that they can't develop a nuclear weapon ever. And then, you know, some discussion of regime change. I think it's sort of settled on the first two. I think the regime change that I think most people talk about would be substantive, not just the fact that the Supreme Leader has died. I would hope that we could move to a point where the objectives are somewhat limited and then essentially contain Iran in the future. I mean, it's been a massive amount of firepower that we've seen put into them, and clearly they've responded. So. And I think, you know, in the long run, we'll. We'll debate whether the objectives were right up front or whether they well understood. One of the positions. I mean, I'm in is, look, we're in now, and I think we have to figure out how to make it come out as well as possible.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Well, I'm going to ask you about that, but first I want to remind you that we spoke in June during the so called 12 Day War. And back then you told me you were concerned of the possibility that Trump would strike Iran, that Iran would lash out at Gulf states and then that it would spread to a much wider war that couldn't be contained. That is happening right now. I don't know whether it can or cannot be contained, but it is much wider than anybody expected. Even Trump admitted this week he was surprised by Iran's retaliation. Are you concerned that he was surprised or do you think Iran telegraphed in the lead up to this exactly what it would do?

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Well, I have, I mean, this has not surprised me at all that it has expanded, that it's gone from as far from Cyprus to Oman to Azerbaijan, and that you see European capitals now looking to better defend themselves, possibly as well. I mean, Christian, for me it's war in the Middle East. It's always complex. It always seems to escalate and become much more difficult. And one of the things that certainly I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan is we need to have a discussion on how this ends. Some idea, not just what the objective is, but, you know, what's the end state. You always don't get that right. But I think it serves us well to try to think about that and move in that direction. Then you sort of have something that you're going for. I'm just not sure we, we have that yet. Well, with respect to Iran, well, you

[Christiane Amanpour]

were saying earlier that you hoped that it would be a more limited scope that one could actually aim for and then measure and I guess have that as an exit strategy. But in yet another independent interview with a US Press axios, Barack Ravid, President Trump said that. And this goes to your regime change comment that he has to decide and be involved in who is the next leader. He has said that the person whose name is being floated to succeed the assassinated Khamenei, his son Mujtaba, is, quote, unacceptable. It would just be more of the same. He said that he needs to be involved like he was with Delsey, referring to Delsey Rodriguez, who was Nicolas Maduro's deputy in Venezuela. What's your reaction to that?

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

I think that's very hard. I mean, I think the president can certainly assert that. I think in the end, it becomes a question of how much the Iranian leadership would acquiesce to that thought and possible action on the part of our own president. This is a very hardline regime. Certainly what I've read about Khamenei's son, he's more of a hardliner. Whether he's the leader of that his dad was is another question. And I think we should think very hard about how difficult it is to displace this regime. They've known something like this was coming for a long time. Now, I'm struck that one of the data points is that the IRGC, basically, their military runs about 40% of their economy. So when we talk about changing regimes and changing out for the better, we're displacing everything that an awful lot of people in the regime stand for. And I think this war right now is a fight for Iran's survival, for the regime's survival. So I think having a position or asserting a position that you need to help decide who the next leader is, that's a real challenge.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I want to ask you also, because it goes to the future. There's been these various discussions about whether there's enough ammunition, et cetera. This chairman, current chairman of the Joint Chief, says there is. This is what Senator Mark Kelly himself, you know, a combat vet, has said about this. Let's just listen.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

My biggest concern right now. What's the math? What's the math on this? How many ballistic missiles do the Iranians still have? How many interceptors do we have in the region? Is this math still in our favor? I don't think so.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Do you agree with that? Because President Trump says, quote, there are virtually unlimited supply of these weapons for the United States.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

It's hard for me to know, Christian. The whole issue of missile inventory has been very much front and center, literally, since Ukraine started. The war in Ukraine started in 2022. That we've depleted a great number, that we depleted a great number of these kinds of missiles when we were involved in the Red Sea defending against the Houthis that were attacking shipping there. But I just don't have a feel for, you know, what the actual inventory is. I'm sure the current chairman and the military leadership has got an exact feel for that and would certainly act accordingly. These missile lines, you can't. You can't produce them very quickly. We have. We have dramatically increased the production rate over the last several years. But if what I read, and the number of targets we've attacked and the number of missiles, quite frankly, that Iran and drones that Iran has used, you know, that depletion is pretty rapid, how long it can last. And I think this is part of Iran's strategy, which is, can they outlast us? There is, as you know, this famous line in the Middle East. You know, you've got the clock, but we've got the time. And I think Iran just needs to survive this as opposed to, quote, unquote, win it. And obviously, the missile inventory is a big part of that.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So as you want to look forward, there's another report now in the Washington Post says President Trump calls on the Kurds to aid US Effort and offer support. There's a lot of mixed information about whether this is real, whether it's not. What do you think arming the Kurds, which we've been told with small arms, they're separatists, they're part of their. They make up 9 to 10 million people in Iran. Do you think that's. What do you think of that strategy if it happens?

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

I think dealing with the Kurds is always a huge challenge. They're obviously there in three distinct groups. Usually two of them are after another one. The pkk, which is one of them, is a declared terrorist organization. The organization the Kurdish in northern Iraq. It's a very stable group. It was even through the wars. And I think there's great friction, for instance, inside Turkey with the Kurds that are there. And I saw, I mean, you commented in your opening, I think about missile was intercepted on its way to Turkey. I think Turkey is a huge part of this challenge. Their leader there has wanted to sort of run the Islamic world for some time. They're a member of NATO. That complicates things. So I think involving the Kurds is much more complicated than what might be seen as a good idea because of some of their background. It's always really complex when we're dealing with them. It was in Iraq when, when we were essentially providing a safe haven for them in northern Iraq, protecting them in many, many ways. So I just. We need to move and understand that cautiously. And there'll be people in the administration who understand this, you know, how deeply difficult this might be and what they might be able to do.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I want to ask you also about the submarine attack, the torpedo that was told to us by your successor, you know, Dan Kaine. General Dan Kaine said it was the first time that a US Attacked submarine had used a torpedo to sink a combat ship since 1945. And this, apparently this Iranian ship had been sailing home from an East Indian port where it participated in international naval conference hosted by India. And the Iranian foreign minister has posted, the US has perpetrated an atrocity at sea 2000 miles away from Iran's shores. And mark my words, the US will come to bitterly regret precedent it has set. What's your view of the US using a torpedo to do that in international waters.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Look, when a war starts like this, Iran's the enemy, so their military is fair game whether it's near or far. So I don't have any problem with that. We've talked about, or at least, I'm sorry, the leadership has talked about sinking the Iranian navy. The Iranian navy was never much of a threat. Obviously they could present problems in the Straits of Hormuz, but they were never going to be in any fight that difficult to both eliminate and to neutralize and eliminate. And this is just an indication of that. That's a massively capable weapon that they use, that we use. So I'm not surprised at all that they were able to execute it that way.

[Christiane Amanpour]

So when we talk about the day after, and you really want to figure out, like everybody what the bar for declaring victory, you have America and Israel in the first ever of this kind of joint operation, there might be somewhat differing objectives. A, is that an issue, do you think? And B, how do you see this ending?

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

I. We do have different objectives. I think from the US Standpoint, we'd like to restore deterrence. We'd opted to like to eliminate and contain their missile threat. We'd like to make sure that they don't have any capability to develop nuclear weapon, a nuclear weapon in the future. And part of what we need to do is, is find out what happened to the 450kg of 60% enriched uranium once this thing ends for Israel. It's existential. I think Israel will go as far as we let them in terms of this existential threat historically. And I know, you know this Christian, that Israel's had a strategy of essentially mowing the grass, so they're willing to go through whatever they need to go through in the current threat environment and if it doesn't totally eliminate it when it starts to be developed again, come back again. I don't think that's ever been the US position. So I think that we have to understand our objectives are different and that there is a survival aspect of this for Israel and they see an opportunity now to eliminate this threat for the foreseeable future. I think we have to reconcile what we would like to see with that specific objective. And then there's two other players. There's the Gulf states, they'd like to see this thing end as quickly as possible. They've invested billions in making this a tourist haven, a place, an economic haven, et cetera. And now that's all on hold. So. And even though they've been attacked, I think in the end the attacks really are about Iran coming at the US So they would like to see this end and stabilize as quickly as possible. And the other player who's not playing much but certainly watching is China. What kind of weapon depletion, what kind of appetite do the American people have for this? They get 85% of their energy, their oil and gas out of the straits. You know, a lot of that's, you know, I think raw exports, somebody said 1.5 million barrels of oil a day and 1.3 of that goes to China.

[Scott Anderson]

Yeah.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

So they're in they're jeopardized to some degree as well.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Okay.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

So how much of this applies to our relationship with China in the future? Who is existential to us is also a big question.

[Christiane Amanpour]

And interestingly, the president is going to visit on a state visit to Xi Jinping in China at the end of this month. Admiral Mike Mullen, thank you very much for being with us. And later in the program, how are Iranians feeling in this complex and dangerous moment? Correspondent Jomana Karadshe reports. Hey, everyone, it's Audie. And I've got another special episode of the Assignment for you. I was at the podcast festival known

[Audie Cornish]

as On Air Fest that was in

[Christiane Amanpour]

Brooklyn just last week. And for this I knew I wanted

[Audie Cornish]

to bring along a friend because we're

[Christiane Amanpour]

going to talk about work, spouses, and mine for a very long time was Ari Shapiro of npr.

[Jomana Karadshe]

You heard us on the radio being very serious. And during the eight minute segment when our mics are off, we would cackle

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

about the latest thing that we had

[Jomana Karadshe]

found on Reddit or on Instagram or

[Fred Plaitkin]

whatever was bubbling up in the culture.

[Jomana Karadshe]

And we never really got to laugh like that with each other and finish

[Fred Plaitkin]

each other's sentences on radio in quite that way.

[Audie Cornish]

No.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Listen to the Assignment with me, Audie Cornish.

[Audie Cornish]

Streaming now on your favorite podcast app.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, I often hear questions about how to keep our parents and grandparents empowered with access to technology to help us out with ways to protect our older loved ones.

Online, I have Tazeen Khan here with me. She is the founder and CEO of a nonprofit called Cyber Collective which helps make Internet street smart. These scammers do a lot of high

volume rinse and repeat scrubbing through these

[Fred Plaitkin]

lists to see who has a vulnerability,

[Christiane Amanpour]

who never changed their password.

The biggest one is slowing down if

you're getting an email or a text message from UPS and you don't have a package that you ordered and you're not expecting anything from UPS. Probably shouldn't click that link.

Listen to CNN's terms of service for

wherever you get your podcasts.

Now. Inside Iran, this extraordinary and dangerous time prompts conflicting emotions. The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei and the targeting of internal security sites brings a great deal of gratification for victims of regime oppression. But the deaths of so many Iranians, including over 150 killed at a girls school in an incident the US says it's investigating, brings great sorrow. Correspondent Joel Romana Karadshe spoke to several Iranians who had previously been subjected to abuse and torture by the regime to hear their reactions to what they are seeing now.

[Audie Cornish]

They terrorized Iranian women for decades, the regime's enforcers of so called morality. This week, one of the most notorious morality police centers in Tehran was hit in a strike. In text and audio messages from inside Iran, women shared with us their relief when they heard that place is no more.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I'm crying because I'm so happy to know that it doesn't exist. And I'm crying because I remember the

[Fred Plaitkin]

way I was insulted and pushed around in that building.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I will never forget that one of

[Audie Cornish]

these officers took a handkerchief that had been lying on the ground and rubbed it on my face and wiped my makeup off.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Our time there was deeply traumatizing.

[Audie Cornish]

I always thought about how I would

[Christiane Amanpour]

go there and take my revenge if the government fell.

I'm experiencing so many conflicting emotions at this time.

[Audie Cornish]

The satellite images from before and after the strike show the damage sustained by the Gisha street complex that also housed other regime security apparatus. Fatimeh Mousadegh says state security held her there twice. Hearing the news brought back a nightmare she's tried for years to leave behind in Iran.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I was in the little cell. I have a friend, she was in the next room. And we tried to be calm with the sound of crying each other. She shouted, me cry louder. I want to hear you.

[Audie Cornish]

Sorry, Fatima. Fatima, a women's rights activist and mother, was locked up in that compound twice, the second time for 16 days of interrogations. Accused of working with foreign states, she says she was threatened with physical and sexual abuse that many detainees face. The moment when you heard that it was hit, how did you feel?

[Christiane Amanpour]

Too complicated. I'm not happy.

[Abbas Milani]

I don't like war.

[Christiane Amanpour]

But at the same time, and I think, oh, there is no place like

[Abbas Milani]

that

[Christiane Amanpour]

for my people, for me to torch

[Audie Cornish]

for the regime's victims. Holy Seeing the walls that once caged them now crumble brings a complicated release of emotions. Thank you, Israel. A woman filming this video says her house was damaged in a strike here. But it's okay, she says, happy to sacrifice it for the young people who were killed by the regime. This is what was hit in that strike, a base used by government security forces. This video from 2022 during the Woman Life Freedom uprising captured the savagery that emanated from that base. About a dozen agents who operated out of that place surround an unarmed protester, ram him with a motorbike, beat him with batons, and then this. That young man who miraculously survived is Poria Alipour. That terrifying night forever etched on his face. In a message, he told us, I am happy to see the destruction of this criminal base. This regime must be destroyed so a new Iran can rise. Poria, like other victims, says he's happy to see these strikes take out the center of the regime's repression. But at the same time, it's painful knowing innocent Iranians are also paying the price. Soroush Haza' I is one of those Iranians. The 29 year old visual artist was killed in a strike that targeted a regime security building near his family's home, one of more than a thousand civilians killed so far in this war, according to activists. It's the bitter cost that comes with this measure of long awaited justice for the regime's countless victims.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Thank you to Jomana Karache for that important report. So it's been 47 years since the last revolution in Iran, which toppled the Shah and shifted the country from a secular, pro Western monarchy to a draconian, theocratic Islamic republic. The son of Iran's last shah, Reza Pahlavi, continues to be a prominent face of the Iranian opposition despite living most of his life in exile in the United States. As he told me in an interview just two weeks before this war, he is hoping to be the one who leads an Iranian transition to democracy despite little support from President Trump. I want to turn now to two historians who are perfectly placed to reflect on all of this. Scott Anderson is a longtime journalist who's reported from the Middle east for decades, and he's author of King of Kings telling the Story of the Revolution. And Abbas Milani is an Iranian American historian who was himself imprisoned and went on to write a landmark biography, the Shah. They're joining me both now and welcome to the program. Abbas Milani, as an Iran, as an Iranian, I just want to ask you, you saw Jomana's report there. Tell me how you feel and what you think this war might do for Iran.

[Abbas Milani]

I feel a profound sense of sadness for the death of innocent Iranians. But I hold the Iranian regime responsible for it because I think they have put the country on a war path for 47 years. A war with Israel, a war with the United States that I think the people of Iran never signed up for. Mr. Khomeini lied to the people of Iran, promised democracy, and delivered what you, I think, aptly called draconian despotism. And people have been fighting this regime for almost 46 years. And thus seeing these innocent lives, the destruction of property, breaks, I think, any Iranian's heart as it breaks mine. But I cannot forget that less than three months ago, this brutal regime killed, at least according to its own numbers, the 100 innocent Iranians. Reliable outside sources put the number in several tens of thousands. That level of brutality has gotten many people like the ones in your program that literally brought tears to my eyes to say I am willing to pay the price for this regime to be finished.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Let me turn to you, Scott, because you have a latest book out, Shah of Shahs. And actually you interviewed certainly the Empress Farah Pahlavi, who was the queen at the time of the toppling of the revolution. She left with her husband, the Shah, and then he died a year later. Now Reza Pahlavi is positioning himself as the leader in exile. So what did you learn about those last days, about the, about the situation in Iran and what might come next from your interviews for this book?

[Scott Anderson]

So talking about the last days, it's rather poignant. The Shah, what he's told many people as the revolution was getting worse, more violent, he told a number of people, including the American ambassador at the time, that if saving my throne comes at the cost of killing my nation's youth, I won't do it. And he went into exile. I think rather than do that, just to pick up on something that Mr. Malani said, this regime, in the first weekend of January, by most reliable estimates, at least 10,000, a minimum of 10,000 people were killed by this regime. That's four times the number of people who were killed during the year long course of the Iranian revolution. So we're in a fundamentally different place in dealing with a fundamentally different regime than we were dealing with under the Shah.

[Christiane Amanpour]

I want to go back to Abbas Milani and the bait and switch, because I remember, I mean, I was there in Iran during that year of revolution that led to the 1979 return of Khomeini. And I remember being quite shocked that upper middle class people, governments in the west from the UK to the US to France, really believed that this guy in a turban, you know, who sent religious cassettes back to Iran, was going to bring what he said was democracy and freedom and all the other things. Why do you think he had such an easy job of persuading the Iranian people and the governments abroad who had been allied with the Shah?

[Abbas Milani]

Well, first of all, let me say that it is for me a pleasure and privilege to be talking to iconic woman journalists that knows Iran so well. So it is for me a privilege to be talking with you. But I think it was easy because Khomeini had lived in exile. His book, where he had laid out his draconian design for and medieval despotism, was banned under the Shah. I think in retrospect, it should have been made mandatory reading. And there was a romance that many of Iranian intellectuals had with Khomeini, with the idea that Islam is a liberating force. It wasn't just the Americans that were fooled by Khomeini. We have to first begin with ourselves, the Iranian society, almost the entire gamut of the left, the central forces, many women forces, many feminists, came out to defend someone whose past heritage was to say the right of vote for a woman is the beginning of harlotry. A religious force that had fought every effort of Iranian women for freedom. If you had stayed in Iran, the international recognition you would have had never been possible. If these guys had their upper hand under the Pahlavi regime. Every effort the Shah made and his father made to improve the lives of women in Iran was fought by these regime, by the advocates of this regime, Bay, Khamenei, Khomeini and their predecessors. But this romance, this attachment to anyone who says anything against the West, Khomeini talked radically against the US particularly after 1963. There is a difference, we now know, between xenophobia and anti colonial discourse. Khomeini cleverly lodged his xenophobia, lodged his anti Semitism in the rhetoric of anti colonialism and anti Zionism. And a lot of people were fooled by it, including the us, including Europe and virtually everybody else.

[Christiane Amanpour]

And fast forward to today. Scott Anderson. And certainly when you were doing your research and writing your book, there's a huge gulf, as Abbas was saying, between understanding of the west and Iran, of each other. And what's actually going on is famously that the US had no idea what was going to happen in Iran. President Carter came on the eve of 1978 and called it an island of stability. And eight days later, the revolution started. But. Or the uprising started. What do you think in this conversation about who's going to take over what is regime change? Trump has just said he has to be involved in choosing the next leader. Do you get a sense of what might be an outcome of this?

[Scott Anderson]

Well, I'll answer it in two ways. There's been a lot of talk of this kind of rallying around Crown Prince Reza. People marching in the streets of Tehran back in January with his portrait. I kind of see that as first as the ultimate way to slag the regime. For 47 years, the Iranian people have been given this diet of the Shah as pretty much the devil incarnate. And what more can you do to thumb your nose at the regime than to embrace his son? But I do not see Reza playing a role in the future. I think that the reason this is galvanizing around him is that he's the one identifiable opposition leader in exile. And internally, everybody's either been executed or prison. So I think there's been this rallying around Reza for that reason. I also think that just to pick up on something that Abbas was saying about this idea. Well, sorry, what Trump was saying about this idea of that he has to play a role. How do you play a role if you don't have troops on the ground? Regime change can't happen in Iran, I believe by bombing by the Americans and the Israelis bombing their sophisticated weapon. Remember that the people who were slaughtered in January, they were killed with machine guns and shotguns. No matter how much air attack you do and how much you neutralize the Iranian military, the weapons of murder that the regime has used are not going to be affected. So this idea that somehow the Iranian people are going to rise up and take on this government that just two months ago slaughtered tens of thousands of people, I just don't see happening, Abbas,

[Christiane Amanpour]

to you, because you've done polling in terms of how many supporters the regime might, how many are true believers, and how many want change. You know, there's often a lot of patronizing commentary from the West. Oh, people in that part of the world are not capable, not ready, not able to be democratic and free as we know it. But you know better than I do that Iran has had constitutional processes towards. Towards democracy and parliamentary processes, let's say, from 1908. Tell me what you think about the likelihood of whatever happens now leading to a free, democratic, and, you know, and unified future.

[Abbas Milani]

Well, first of all, I don't know how Scott knows what the Iranian people feel when they shout for somebody. I think people have A sense of a profound dissatisfaction. They have a sense of nostalgia. And they compare Iran in 1977 with Iran today. And they think the Iran of yesteryear was far better than anything this regime has to offer. So I think we need to be careful in trying to decide what the people's slogans mean. Let me give you two studies. One is the study that we did at Iranian Studies at Stanford, and this is now online. People can go look at it. This is a very detailed study of demonstrations in Tehran from 2009 to 2024. Every third day, every third day in Tehran, there has been a credible, registered, located demonstration against this regime. So people have shown they don't want the status quo. They have shown it peacefully. They have faced prison. The regime has gone on killing sprees on almost every major demonstration. In terms of the popularity the crown prince has, by the most credible poll I have seen about at least 30% of the population. 30% of the population are critical of him and 30% are undecided. So my sense is, and I wrote a piece in the New York Times two days ago, I said, what is important is what the people of Iran seem to clearly want, and that's a secular democratic society. An end to this regime and a secular democratic society means to me that the future of Iran has to be determined by the people of Iran. It cannot be determined in Israel. It cannot be determined in Washington. They can have a role to play. They can fight this regime. But the people of Iran have to decide their future. They are ready. They are needing of help, but not the help that says, I'm going to decide your future if I'm going to help you.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Great conversation. Thank you so much for your context. Professor Abbas Milani and author Scott Anderson, thank you so much. Indeed. Coming up, how Congress is trying to seize back its constitutional authority to approve any war. Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman says lawmakers could still push back. That's after the break.

[Jomana Karadshe]

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What if caregiving doesn't just take from us, but what if it gives something back as well?

[Christiane Amanpour]

Multitasking is the worst thing you could do as a caregiver because the presence of is the currency. That's all you can really give. You cannot control outcomes. At the end of the day, the presence. And if you're multitasking, it's gonna muddy

[Kristen Holmes]

up the whole thing.

[Christiane Amanpour]

We also don't consider care as productive in our country.

[Jomana Karadshe]

Her book is called when youn Care, the Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others. Journalist Alyssa strauss, the magic of caring for others. Listen to Chasing Life streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Christiane Amanpour]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has described another day of death and destruction raining down. That's a quote on Iran. While also in Washington, Democratic senators are trying to rein in the president. Today, the House took up the challenge after those senators yesterday failed to invoke the war powers ahead. But our next guest argues that lawmakers still can and should push back. Noah Feldman is a Harvard law professor speaking just before the Senate vote. He reminds Hari Srinivasan how letting past presidents war making go unchecked led up to this moment now.

[Scott Anderson]

Christiano, thanks. Noah Feldman, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote an op ed recently in the Bloomberg Opinion section and it said when you bomb a country and take out its leader, that's an act of war. I guess a fairly simple basic definitional question. Are we at war right now or not?

[Fred Plaitkin]

Under any international law definition, we're absolutely at war. And under the Constitution, the word war, according to our Supreme Court, takes on board the meaning that comes from the international law of war. So I would say that under our Constitution, yes, we're absolutely at war right now. We're shooting, they're shooting. We took out their supreme leader. Countries have sovereign rights to choose their own supreme leader, even if we hate that supreme leader. So, yeah, it's a war.

[Scott Anderson]

Trump's military strike in Iran is, for a lot of people, part and parcel of a pattern that American presidents have been practicing for quite a while. So if you could refresh our audience, how did we get to this point where the president, a president of the United States can launch a military attack on another country without having to let Congress know or get permission.

[Fred Plaitkin]

It happened in three stages. At the first beginning of our country, there was really no way that a president could make war without waiting for Congress to declare it because we didn't have a standing army. That means there weren't any, not very many at all, U.S. military troops, to say nothing of. There were five or six warships, definitely no planes. So if they started a war, if the executive started a war, Congress had to allocate the funds to pay the soldiers to build the ships and so forth and so on. So the system was set up under the Constitution to say Congress has to declare war and only then can the president do it. And it worked. After World War II, we'd built up biggest military in the world and then we had nuclear weapons. So the president could, you know, take out whole civilization with the press of a button and we keep our military going. And once that happened, it became much harder to stop the President from using military force. And things kind of reached ahead in the Nixon administration. When Richard Nixon bombed Cambodia and Laos secretly. It's hard to believe it now, but he did it secretly, expanded the Vietnam War without authorization from Congress. And Congress said, enough is enough. And so they passed a law called the War Powers Resolution. And it says that when the President attacks and engages in hostilities against a foreign country, he's got two days to tell Congress that he's doing it. So no secrets. And then after 60 days, unless Congress authorizes the hostilities, they're illegal. So that's the legal framework that's in place. Nixon didn't like it, but Congress passed it over Nixon's veto. So two thirds of the House and the Senate passed it. That's the law presently. But here's the big but. If the President violates the law, there's not that much that Congress can do about it. So Bill Clinton was bombing Kosovo. He went two weeks beyond the deadline, and he just did it. Congress didn't like it, but it happened anyway. Then Barack Obama decided to bomb Libya, and he didn't even bother to get authorization from Congress at all. And he got an opinion from the State Department contradicting the Department of Justice that said that if you're bombing a country from the air for a limited objective, there's not that much risk of escalation and not much risk to U.S. troops. So you can just do it, and it doesn't even count as hostilities for purposes of law. Now, that's ridiculous. And you can see why, because Donald Trump just did exactly the same thing in bombing Iran. And we're at war. You know, people are. The other side's fighting back. U.S. troops have already been put in harm's way, and some tragically have died.

[Scott Anderson]

Okay? So if Congress is having these debates, we are having this conversation Tuesday afternoon. Somewhere in this week, the House and the Senate may try to bring this up. Is this entirely theatrical? Because what's the point? I mean, we literally are doing something to another country. Now, the President has taken this action almost unilaterally, and his lawyers will say, I'm doing what several previous presidents have done. So I don't really care if I get your approval right now or not.

[Fred Plaitkin]

So, Hari, I agree with your description, but I wouldn't use the word theatrical. And here's why. Okay, Congress passes a War Powers resolution that says, Mr. President, you need our authorization for this, and you don't have it. Trump will veto it, there's no question. And there's not going to be a two thirds majority to overcome the veto. We no longer live in the world where both parties thought that Congress's power was more important than the president on their team. So in that sense, you're right that it's not going to stop the fighting, it's not going to stop the war. The reason it's more than theatrical, though, is that Congress is a branch of government, and the only thing it can do under these circumstances, to start with, is insist on its own authority. And over time, if Congress really had the guts to do it, they could reduce funding, they could pass another law that said, you know, Mr. President, you can't use funds that we've allocated to you to fight this war. And although in this particular instance, you're right, it's not going to change anything, that's how Congress gets its power back. Congress has to find a way to reestablish some of its power over declaration of hostilities and war.

[Christiane Amanpour]

You know,

[Scott Anderson]

exactly what constitutes an immediate threat to the homeland. Is there any evidence here of an immediate threat posed to the American homeland, so to speak?

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Or.

[Scott Anderson]

I mean, because we've had different kinds of objectives stated by the administration. One was to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate attacks against American forces, and we had to sort of go in preemptively. I mean, how do you reason out what the case is that the United States can make or President Trump can make to Congress to say this action's justified?

[Fred Plaitkin]

Well, Hari, you're really getting into the heart of the matter now, because you're right that no constitutional expert disputes that if a country invaded us, the president could defend us unilaterally. There's no question about that. And if a country was about to attack us or attack our troops or invade us, that's also going to count as an imminent threat. And then you get into the tricky question of how imminent does it have to be? How imminent is imminent? And when the administration just declares, well, we're under imminent threat, that declaration could be true. But they need to provide some facts that support that interpretation. The idea that Israel was going to attack inevitably, and that then that would lead to retaliation against us, so that we should act inevitably. It's a possible argument under some circumstances. But of course, Israel is also our ally, and this was a coordinated attack. And if the president had said to Prime Minister Netanyahu, listen, don't attack this day, attack this other day, or attack at this other time, or don't attack at all. It's certainly conceivable that Israel would have agreed with that. In fact, I think it's probable. And so for the president to say, well, that was going to happen no matter what, so we had to ask preemptively creates a kind of, you know, it's a kind of slippery slope that based under almost any circumstances, we could generate a justification for going to war. So to be clear, this isn't the first time that this question has arisen. There was a huge national debate about whether we should go to war in Iraq and whether.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

And Kristi Noem is out as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. We have a team of reporters on this. Let's start with Kristen Holmes at the White House. Kristen, it was, what, like 10 minutes ago that you were reporting that her job was in jeopardy and now it's official.

[Kristen Holmes]

Yep. President Trump has announced that he has fired the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. This is the first cabinet position that he has fired during his second term. Of course, the only other high profile ouster we've had like this was when Mike Wall serves as the head of the National Security Council. He was a national security adviser. So President Trump just posted this on Truce, so said. I am pleased to announce that the highly respected United States senator from the great state of Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullen, will become the United States Secretary of homeland security effective March 31, 2026. And Boris, just so you know, this is one of the names that we had heard he was floating in these conversations he was having with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The current secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well and has had numerous and spectacular results, especially on the border, will be moving to be special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, our new security initiative in the Western Hemisphere. We are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Christy for her service at Homeland. Again, this is a huge deal, Boris. This is the first time he is firing a cabinet member. He has been incredibly reluctant this term to fire, to shuffle any of his staff, any of his officials, because of the perception of his first term when he was in office that it was a revolving door. However, as we reported, we were told that the catalyst for this was essentially this appearance that she made this hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in which she claimed President Trump had signed off on a $200 million ad campaign that featured her asking illegal Immigrants to self deport. President Trump has now said publicly he didn't do that. And of course, all of this is amid the fallout that we saw from Minnesota, from Minneapolis. And there had been pushback on the Hill and from many of President Trump's allies that Kristi Noem was not the right person for the job. But many of them had been careful to walk a very thin line, not getting too far out there. But clearly we are told now that this hearing put, put Trump over the edge in terms of his anger factor. And now he has fired Noem, replacing him with, replacing her, excuse me, with this Oklahoma senator.

[Audie Cornish]

All right, Kristen, this is huge news

[Christiane Amanpour]

as we are getting this, that Trump

[Audie Cornish]

is replacing Kristi Noem as DHS secretary and moving her to a special envoy

[Christiane Amanpour]

position, which is certainly a demotion and something that is meant to give her a little cover as she is getting ousted.

[Audie Cornish]

Kristen, thank you so much. If you could stand by for us

[Christiane Amanpour]

there at the White House.

[Audie Cornish]

Let's go to Priscilla Alvarez, who has

[Christiane Amanpour]

been tracking this for us.

[Audie Cornish]

What are you learning?

[Christiane Amanpour]

Well, I have been hearing from Homeland Security officials who are stunned, of course. They had been talking amongst themselves over the last several weeks and months, anticipating that the secretary may be out soon, given a series of missteps that they perceived she had done over the last several weeks. And one of those in particular, or many of those in particular are stemmed in what happened in Minneapolis. Recall, of course, that surge of federal agents for that immigration enforcement operation where two US Citizens were fatally shot by federal agents. And it was the secretary who came out in that immediate aftermath calling them domestic terrorists, something that she was grilled on during the congressional hearings this week. But that also shocked Homeland Security officials that she would so quickly draw conclusions over such incidents. And recall, too, that President Trump, in the aftermath of those shootings, had dispatched White House border czar Tom Homan to try to resolve the issues on the ground. It was the most high profile rebuke over the course of the last year of the secretary and the way that she was managing the department and the immigration enforcement mission. Now, of course, the White House said at the time that she was in lockstep with Tom Homan, but it was also clear internally that there had been long simmering tensions there. So all of this to say that it had been building over some time now what was happening in the department, the management of the department between her and her chief advisor, Corey Lewandowski, who was serving as a special government employee. There had been multiple concerns from within the department about the way that she was handling things, even most recently when she said that she was suspending TSA PreCheck. And then the department had to reverse that within hours. So this has been just a shock for a lot of Homeland Security officials who, even though they thought the writing was on the wall with her leaving at some point, the fact that it has happened now on the in the wake of these hearings just has them all scrambling.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Priscilla Alvarez, please stand by. Let's go to Manu Raju, who's live on Capitol Hill. Manu, I promised that at some point

[Fred Plaitkin]

I would ask you about the situation with Kristi Noeman. These hearings, clearly they were disastrous.

[Jomana Karadshe]

Yeah, no question about it. And there had been a lack of support for Christy Noem throughout and a growing number of Republicans expressing frustration, concern and actually, frankly not even saying if they could support her continuing in the job. And no doubt that echoed at the White House. And President Trump clearly had some of those similar concerns as well. But I want you to listen to what some of the Republicans told me just in the last day about whether they would continue supporting Kristi Noem staying in that job. Do you have, do you have confidence in Secretary?

[Christiane Amanpour]

No. Time will tell.

[Jomana Karadshe]

Would you vote for her again if you had a chance? Do you have confidence in her?

[Abbas Milani]

I'm not going to answer that. That's not my decision.

[Jomana Karadshe]

But you voted to confirm her.

[Abbas Milani]

That's not my decision. It's the president. That's up to the president. I want to be a team player

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

and I want to secure the border

[Abbas Milani]

and I want to enforce our immigration laws. But I'm tired of trying to explain behavior that is inexplicable to me.

[Jomana Karadshe]

If you had a chance to vote for her again, would you?

[Abbas Milani]

I'm not going to answer that, Manu. You can try a thousand times, mate. Lots of luck to you.

[Jomana Karadshe]

Markway Mullen almost certainly would get the support of a majority of United States senators to be confirmed as the next secretary of Homeland Security. The Senate tends to look favorably upon its own. He has served in this body for three years. He's a former House member for about 10 years. He's a former mixed martial arts fighter as well. And he's also been a staunch defender of President Trump's agenda. It is unclear exactly when it was informed to Mullen that he would be Donald Trump's pick because he did speak to reporters at about 12:30 this afternoon. He was asked about these rumors about Trump floating his name as a replacement. At that point, he said he had not spoken to Trump all week. And then he went. Who's holed up in the number two Senate Republican's office? John Barrasso. He was not seen for some time. He left the Capitol without commenting, perhaps taking a call from the president at that point. So a surprise to many here and maybe even to Senator Mullen.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

Guys, some fascinating color as Mullen leaves Capitol Hill, potentially taking a call from the president refusing to comment about Trump

[Fred Plaitkin]

considering him for DHS secretary.

[Admiral Mike Mullen]

And just moments ago, Trump confirming that the new DHS secretary is Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma, Manu Raju. See you in the next hour or so. Everyone. Please stay with us. We have much more in the breaking news after a quick break.